


Where Angels Fear to Tread

by Averno



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:05:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Averno/pseuds/Averno
Summary: Chloe Beale is a lot of things. Talented singer? Check. Amazing friend? Check. Literal ray of Sunshine? Check. But Beca thinks her new friend might also be something else entirely...Or the one where Chloe is a guardian angel and Beca falls for her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you all like this, I haven't written in a long time and I still feel like I let my voice. This is just a bit of fluff/light work to get me back on the horse. I have the next few chapters written, just beed to edit. Thanks for reading

The first time she sees her is in third grade.

 

 She’s playing in the park, swinging higher and higher with each pump of her legs, determinedly trying to get as far away as possible from the red brick house with the strange new address and funny smell of wet paint and the familiar shouts that start in hushed whispers and build to screams too loud for even her CD player headphones to cover up. 

 

_“—Why can’t you just talk to her. She is YOUR daughter.”_

 

_“Because she’s a child John I cannot believe we have to have this discussion again. You are never here.”_

 

_“Oh god that’s rich coming from you. Why don’t you just fucking say that you’re too perfect to ever screw up and its all my fault?”_

 

_“Goddmanit—“_

 

Beca leans forward in the swing and turns up the volume on her CD player. Its baby blue and Jesse stuck a stupid pony sticker on it one afternoon at recess but ever since her mom gave it to her last Christmas a day early because she was too excited to wait, Beca has carried it with her everywhere. 

 

Now, the sound of a synthetic beat blasts through the felt earphones. 

 

_I must confess that my loneliness is killing me now…_

 

Becca shuts her eyes and leans her head back, ponytail nearly slipping out of its dirty yellow scruntchy. Wind whistles past her face, but she can barely feel it, her body thrumming to the music and mind transported to a sold out concert stage somewhere far, far away from Midville. 

 

_Don’t you know I still believe that you will be here.._

 

When she’s older, she’ll think back on this day with a bitter half smile and wonder if the universe could have laced the lyrics with anymore irony. 

 

But for now, she loosens a hand from the swing and holds it up in front of her like a microphone. Her voice breaks out to the lyrics in an undignified squeak that she would die before letting anyone hear. 

 

“Give me a siiiiiign, hit me baby—Ouch!“

 

_… one more time…_

 

The song peters out into a garbled mess as Becca opens her eyes and stares down at the girl beneath her, baby blue eyes shining brightly back up at her like she hadn’t just thrown a small rock at Becca’s forehead. 

 

“I _like_ that song!” 

 

Becaa just keeps staring, her stormy eyes narrowed in distrust. She bites the inside of her cheek and looks around quickly, like she can’t decide whether she should keep swinging or try and make a run for it. 

 

“I have the poster in my room!” the girl beams at Becca, unfazed by the shorter girl’s scowl. Her mouth twists like she’s thinking hard about something, and then, “Do you want to come see it?”

 

“I don’t talk to strangers.”

 

“Oh.” The other girl pauses, her lips puckering into a frown as she chews on a piece of bright red hair. She digs the tip of her sparkly sneaker into the sand. Suddenly, her face lights up, “We could be friends! Then we wouldn’t be strangers at all!”

 

“No.” Beca puts her headphones back on and pretends to turn the volume up, her eyes squeezed shut. 

 

_Hit me baby one more time…_

 

A rock bounces against her leg. 

 

She hits skip on her song and begins blaring the Backstreet Boys. Loudly. 

 

A used popsicle stick bangs against her elbow.

 

Followed by another pebble against her foot and ankle. 

 

Beca tilts her head up and tries to swing faster, music on high. 

 

She’s almost convinced herself that the other girl is gone when theres a dull thud as a single, sparkly sneaker smacks into her head. 

 

Beca’s eyes snap open only to narrow to dangerous slits. She grinds her feet into a halt in the sand and watches in disbelief as the other girl storms over—her movements a little off balance as she tries not to let the pink sock on her left foot touch the dirty sand too much.  

 

“My name is Chloe Beale and you and I are going to be friends.” She leans forward into the swings, one hand wrapped around the pole.

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?” Chloe frowns, chin jutted out at a stubborn angle. 

 

“you’re…” Becca looks away from the pair of blue eyes staring back at her unflinchingly and mumbles “weird.” 

 

“Am not!”

 

“Are too” she grunts, trying to hop off the swing and move around the girl. Her headphones snag on the bars. There’s an uncomfortable feeling of plastic tightening around her neck as Becca fumbles to release herself from the yards of wires hopelessly entangled. “I—“ she sticks a finger between the metal pole and headphone case “Don’t—” her hands uselessly try to detach the wires “Even—“ somehow her hand gets stuck even further into the tangled mess “like that song” she finishes in a single, frustrated breath. 

 

“Nah-ah. Everyone likes that song.” 

 

“No.”

 

“I bet your family does.”

 

“They don’t like music. Daddy says it gives him a-a megraine.” she says, the words unfamiliar in her mouth. 

 

The other girl taps a finger against her chin. “I bet he’d like it if you sang it to him,” she watches Beca push herself frustratedly against the swings, wires now somehow wrapped around her waist. 

 

“He doesn’t know I sing.”

 

There’s the sudden smell of strawberry shampoo and before Beca knows whats happening blue eyes are smiling up at her as the other girl effortlessly twists her out of her trap. “There!” then in a softer tone that Becca can just barely hear: “He should. You’re a really good singer. I’m sorry for throwing my shoe at you.” 

 

Beca starts a bit at that and then freezes. Her gaze darts down at the now-untangled headphones. She twists her hands in front of her uncomfortably, and then she straightens herself to her full three feet two inches just like her dad taught her and squares her shoulders. “I’m sorry I said you were weird too” she says so quickly and so seriously she’s afraid she might strain an eye muscle. “I’m Beca.”

 

The other girl listens seriously, head cooked to one side as she drinks in Beca’s words. 

 

Beca twitches, about to open her mouth, afraid she somehow already said the wrong thing. But then Chloe’s face breaks out into the biggest, blinding grin Beca has ever seen and she swears the sunlight seems mellow in comparison. 

 

“Nice to meet you Beca!” 

 

There’s a pause as Chloe waits for Beck to say something back. 

 

“I..” Beca shifts, uncomfortable, unfamiliar with how to proceed, each word chewed over carefully before she enunciates it, “Like your shirt”  and her fingers point uselessly to the bright pink wings covered in glitter on Chloe’s T. 

 

“You do?” and if Beca thought the other girl’s smile had been bright before, its reached otherworldly heights now, “It’s my favorite.” she leans in, breath fanning Beca’s cheeks and the dark haired girl can feel her stomach do a weird flip flop thing like it does whenever she’s eaten too many gummy bears before swinging or done too many twirls on the monkey bars. The sensation makes her screw up her face, her insides feeling somehow unpleasant and yet happy at the same time. 

 

“I have some animal crackers in my backpack, want some?”

 

“..Ok.”

 

“follow me!” the redhead squeals, the command redundant as she grabs Beca’s hand anyways and pulls her over to a picnic table. 

 

Beca looks down at their entwined fingers with a frown and wonders why her stomach won’t stop wriggling. 

 

Chloe never lets go though, and fifteen minuets and entire packet of animal crackers and fruit roll ups and a half a PB and J later Beca finds herself hugging her CD player to her chest. 

 

“My mom got it for me,” she explains, tracing her sticky fingers over the play button, and then stopping. “Its my favorite.” 

 

The other girl squeezes her hand before carefully running one chipped nail polish finger over cool metal “Its really cool! I like it. Your mom must’ve been really special. And it’s blue! Like her eyes”

 

Beca smiles then, its hesitant and so fragile a breath of wind could shatter it, but she can feel it growing stronger in the other girl’s answering warmth, and before she knows it she’s giggling, lost in the warmth that seems to come off Chloe in waves, never even pausing to consider how the other girl knew her mom’s eye color. 

 

“Yours too” Beck dares and blushes. 

 

The other girl tilts her head. “You—” 

 

“Beca? Beca! Oh sweetie there you are.” Theres a rush of wind as her step-mom sweeps her up in a too-tight hug, all the air and sunshine leaving Beca’s body in an undignified ‘whoop.’

 

“I was so worried about you sweetie. Are you ok?” hands with blood red fingernails run over her forehead and shoulders, pushing her messy hair out of her face, “you’re not hurt are you?” Stephaine picks her up and begins walking to the park exit, not bothering to wait for Beca’s answers.  “you know you’re father said never to wander off like that. You had us so worried,” and the initial breathy-worried tone in her step-mom’s voice is replaced by a scolding one that immediately makes Beca want to stuff her headphones on again and crawl under the play-set somewhere that Stephanie could never reach her. 

 

“I’m fine.” Because grunts through the too-tight hug. She twists in Stephanie’s arms, trying to peer back at Chloe. All the light from the afternoon seems to be slipping away and Beca glances back desperately to the picnic table like a life-saver. “Wait! My friend!” she points uselessly to the grass spot where the red-headed girl with the too blue eyes still sits, waving softly back at Beca. 

 

Stephaine turns with a frown and stares to where Beca is pointing. A grimace tugs over her face and a small, pitying smile like she’s embarrassed for Beca finds its way into her expression. “Oh, honey.” And even though she tries to hide the annoyance in her voice, Beca can pick up on the small eye-roll and scoff, 

 

“There’s no one there.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next time they meet she’s sixteen.

 

She’s at a party she should’ve never gone to, the walls shaking with the steady thud, thud, thud, of the beat that’s been tearing up the radios lately. 

 

Beca hates it. She misses the quite hum of her own music, of lyrics that matter and rhythms that have meaning. Her fingers itch to change the station, to move things around and layer verses until its one of her own mixes playing. But she knows she can’t. 

 

“Awesome-sauce am I right?” a frat boy grins at her as he wraps one muscled arm around her shoulders, his fingers brushing over her collarbone. She lets herself lean into the touch, a too bright grin on her face. “What time do I have to have you home babe?”

 

Her body tenses and her stomach drops. “Who cares?” she slurs back, stealing the red plastic cup out of his hand before draining the contents with a wink. “Shots.” 

 

She feels numb, her face smiling and laughing even though none of it goes deeper than her skin. Its like someone’s turned her insides into ice or cement but nobody can tell. 

 

Theres a muffled “hell yah!” as the older guy pushes Beca through a crowd of too drunk kids, and she follows his lead almost mechanically. She’s the youngest one here, most of the girls are either in their last years of college or recently graduated and almost all the guys are ten years her senior. 

 

An image of her father asking her why she could’t “Go out, make friends, have _fun_ Becs,” flashes through her mind and she swallows a canfull of cheap, warm beer in response. 

 

She wonders briefly if this constitutes as teenage rebellion, or if she’s finally stepped over the line of “sarcastic, angsty daughter” into something a little less…fixable.

 

“Fuck finals, its Christmas break Bitches!” someone screams as they run outside to vomit in the half-alive rosebushes next to the door, their feet leaving ankle deep imprints in the quickly accumulating snow.

 

 _Guess vodka really does solve every problem_ Beca thinks with a barely concealed eye roll. 

 

“Two tequilla and one Jame-o” the frat boys grins, interrupting her thoughts and sloshing a shot glass into her hand as proudly as if the liquor wasn’t from plastic bottles, “Bottoms up!” he winks, resting his hands on her lower, lower back. His movements are slow and sloppy and Beca feels the double meaning behind the joke like a cold spray of water. But she gives a weak laugh at the pun and is relived when she realizes everyone is too drunk to notice the way she’s slowly shutting down. Her throat burns as the booze scorches down her throat, leaving a trail of slimy fire from her teeth to her toes.

 

It isn’t enough. She could drown in liquor and it wouldn’t wash herself away. 

 

“Uno mas” she hears a voice say in thick, syrupy vowels that draw out longer than they should and it takes her a moment to realize its her own, “The night’s still young.” 

 

The room erupts in cheers again and Beca feels multiple pairs of hands pat her on the back. The small house is filling with a sort of uninhibited recklessness that makes the air churn and roil dangerously. _Kind of like my stomach,_ Becca thinks with a grimace as she sniffs the double someone had shoved into her hand. _Smells like rubbing alcohol._

 

She lifts the glass to her lips and pauses. Freezes really. Her heart somehow skyrockets and drops to the pit of her stomach in the same instant. Because it can’t be—

 

And yet. 

 

 _Chloe,_ her body breathes as she stares over the rim of her glass at a pair of two bright, electric blue eyes swaying into focus. Eyes that haunted her childhood, that found their way into her dreams and nightmares. Eyes that she would recognize anywhere, anytime. 

 

The witty toast on the tip of her tongue dies as Beca feels time slow down and then stop. Its like that moment in every awful rom-com when the main character sees their soulmate for the first time, the camera slowing down to reveal a parting crowd and two strangers staring back at each other knowingly, some cheesy-over the top love-ballad playing in the background. 

 

Only instead of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ and a quintessential high school dance floor, its a throw back song Beca hasn’t heard since a certain day on a swing set in a crowded, dirty frat house, and it isn’t love but an ice cold certainty that ‘ _this is what crazy people must feel like’_ that ripples with horror through her small frame. 

 

But, even though she knows she should, even though her brain is yelling at her to _‘get out now before its too late!’_ Beca can’t pull her gaze away. She’s vaguely aware of people moving around her, of everyone else throwing their shots back like water, but she can’t move. Chloe’s cheeks are tinged pink at the tips where the alcohol has left her a little more open, like a rose blooming, and her laughter trails off her lips into a breathless smile at something someone had said. She’s older now, nobby knees and pointy elbows replaced by curves that would make any model jealous and flowing hair curled like she’s just left the beach. She’s undeniably beautiful. 

 

Beca’s breath hitches. 

 

The sound draws Chloe’s attention. She raises her eyes and takes in Beca, beaming smile dimming as her eyebrows join together and her lower lip is caught between two sets of perfectly white teeth. She stares at Beca softly, like the dark haired girl is on the verge of breaking, her blue eyes, a little too bright from drinking, are open and careful, and its easy to feel the way they seem to be whispering softly, ‘It’s ok, I’m here. You don’t have to do this.’ 

 

Beca shakes her head. Blinks. Raises the shot glass to her lips and swallows fast and deliberately. And by the time she’s done gasping down her drink and her eyes have cleared up from the sharp well of tears that rose up with the burning in her throat, the redhead girl is nowhere to be seen. 

 

She stands still, staring at the spot where Chloe had been, her body unconsciously swaying back and forth, her pupils dilating. _Where….?_

 

Her hand shoots out to steady herself on the counter, and as she looks uncomprehendingly at the black nail polish on her fingers. She must’ve imagined it she realizes slowly, everything seeming to come to her through a thick filter. _Chloe isn’t here. Chloe isn’t real—was never real. Chloe isn’t…?_

 

Her thoughts seem disjointed, lost. It’s like they’re coming to life in the flash of a photograph. One second she’s taking yet another shot in the kitchen and then, _flash,_ the next moment she’s in the bathroom watching two girls roll lines off the bathroom sink, her own lips moving in a numb, incoherent sentence. 

 

Another flash and someone’s hands are trailing over her sides and by the time she moves her arms up to push them away she’s already stumbled into someone else. 

 

_Flash._

 

A breath of red hair flowing by, a tug at her hands, someone else leading her into bedroom to take pulls from a bottle. 

 

_Flash_

 

Blue eyes staring at her over the kitchen sink where she vomits out more beer and cheap liquor. But when she looks up she realizes they’re actually brown. 

 

_Flash._

 

“Are you Chloe?” 

 

“Who?” 

 

_Flash_

 

The frat boy from earlier, or maybe its someone else roving over her shirt and sour breath in her nose. Sticky lips at her throat. “Feels good” they grunt and tear her bra in a room so dark she doesn’t know if its a bedroom or a living room. 

 

_Flash._

 

She’s shoving someone away, her muscles weak and relaxed from the alcohol even though she wants to scream and run. She knows if she stays she’ll pass out. 

 

_Flash._

 

Somehow she’s in her jeep, though she doesn’t remember how she go hear. She has only one arm through her jacket, lipstick smeared around her swollen lips and mascara running down her cheeks in rivers. Her keys find their way into her hands and she’s never wanted to go home as badly as she does right now. Time seems to be speeding up, making up for the seconds it stilled when she saw Chloe. She can see snowflakes falling like shooting stars out her window, leaving blurry streaks as her hands fumble to turn on the lights. The ignition seems far away, and it takes her two or three tries before she can even get the key in the slot, but when she does the engine roars to life, headlights beaming through the snow flurries like tiny lighthouses. 

 

She slams the stick in reverse, not caring that the transmission catches, not noticing that she nocks over a fence pile on her way out of the driveway. 

 

 _Home_ she thinks, repeating the word over and over again like a charm. _Home, home, home, home._

 

She races down the deserted street, not bothering to check her speedometer, eyes narrowed, car cutting between the middle lanes.  

 

_Home, home, home._

 

Its only when she gets to the turn off that brings her to the highway that she pauses. A bright silver volvo rolls past her, its wheels sending up dirty sprays of sludgy snow, the driver honking at her as he nearly misses t-boning her car, the sound following him as he speeds away into the distance.  

 

She looks up and down the windy road, at the unplowed tarmac and the snow falling faster and faster by the minute and the feeling of alcohol dripping through her veins like an IV. She hesitates. 

 

A memory of the last fight she’d had with her father pops into her mind. 

 

_“L.A. is not a career Beca. Music is not an option.”_

 

 _“I don’t want to be like you. Jesus Christ dad, not everyone wants to marry the step-monster and live happily never after.  I_ am _going. If mom was here—“_

 

_“Well She’s not Beca. I’m the only parent you have and I’m telling you you’re not going anywhere.”_

_“Fuck you”_

 

_“That’s great Becs. Just great. You know what? I don’t care anymore. I’m tired of trying to help you. I don’t care.”_

 

She blinks and turns on her windshield wipers, staring straight ahead at the road. A mirthless laugh rolls out from between her ribs with a sharp ache before she guns her car onto the highway. 

 

The tires skid dangerously over the wet ground, loosing traction and nearly sending her over the guard rail. 

 

She smiles through clenched teeth. 

 

“Drunk driving is dangerous you know?” a musical voice says softly. And Beca should jump, should swivel around and demand who the hell is in her car. But she can’t because she’s not even surprised. Not surprised at all that next to her is Chloe Beale, sitting in her passenger seat and softly glowing in the reflection from street lights and snowflakes. 

 

“Yah? so are electrical wires” Beca bites back, trying to follow the four sets of yellow lines. Or maybe it’s two?

 

Chloe leans over, her perfume filling Beca’s lungs as her arm lightly brushes over Beca’s forearm. And the dark haired girl is remind of strawberry shampoo and animal crackers by a picnic table. Chloe turns the dial on the radio until a slow, quite melody filters out. Its a Christmas song, Beca realizes vaguely, the skin on her arm prickling from where Chloe had touched her. 

 

The melody fills the silent car, music imbibing what was empty space just seconds before. Her hands relax a fraction on the steering wheel. 

 

“Mmmm” Chloe sighs dreamily, titling her head back. “I love this song.” Her lips part and she hums along softly, “And though I know its a long dark road back, I promise you, I’ll be home for Christmas.” 

 

Beca bites back a sob. 

 

Chloe shifts in her seat until she’s staring at Becca, and the other girl can feel the weight of her gaze like it’s burning through her ribcage and boiling her blood. 

 

“I’ve always liked these,” She lifts her hand and runs the tip of her finger softly over the new spike piercing in Beca’s ear, the one her step-mother had called ‘disgusting’. She lingers over the curve of her ear, back and forth around the metal running through it, her fingers eventually slipping to trace their way down Beca’s jaw in a touch so feather light it whispers against her skin like a puff of air. “You don’t have to do this you know” her voice is distant, quite as her touch. 

 

Beca tenses, and Chloe’s fingers slip away. “No one cares” she mumbles, her voice a gurgling whisper. 

 

“I care.”

 

“You’re not real.”

 

“But I’m here?” 

 

She tries to keep her eyes on the road. But she can’t. She’s drawn to Chloe like a magnet even when she can feel the car slide dangerously underneath her. 

 

She looks over out of the corner of her eyes. The other girl is smiling softly, a little playfully, her eyes warm liquid pools where small, teasing lights flash through the depths like stars. Her lips are puffy where they meet in a smirk, and Beca has the insane, drunken urge to run her thumb under their bottom layer. 

 

“You’re just. I don’t know.” she rips her eyes away and glares back at the speeding pavement.  “A ghost? I don’t know what you—” her voice rises in hysteria “You’re not real. You’re not.” 

 

Chloe tilts her head, clucks her tongue “Does this feel real?” she says in a throaty whisper that makes Beca’s toes curl. And before she can open her mouth to bite back with something, anything, Chloe leans in again. Her nose brushes against Beca’s cheek, breath fanning softly against her skin and sending a thrill like lighting through every inch of Beca’s body. She moves her head down, lips just barely skimming over Beca’s throat. “Mmm,” she hums, tracing her way to the dark haired girl’s pulse point and back up.

 

And even though its not real, because it can’t be, Beca’s glad that if she had to dream, at least she got to dream this. 

 

“Y-yes.” she stutters back, embarrassed by the hitch in her breath when Chloe nuzzles the spot just between her ear and jaw-line and the way her throat bobs.

 

Chloe chuckles, pulling away, cold air swooping in to replace her warmth. Beca immediately misses the contact. “Then pull over.” she turns serious, puts a hand over Beca’s on the steering wheel. “I’m here, its ok.”

 

Beca’s never been good with this. With people, with touching, with anyone that has ever told her what to do because even though she’s only 5’5 she’s tough as nails and she can handle herself better than anyone she knows. But this? Somehow this is different. Her walls are falling around her like dust, Chloe cutting through them like scissors through paper, and instead of pulling away or retreating behind a layer of disdain and sarcasm she lets herself teeter on the edge of something, something she doesn’t understand, her body tensing like she’s about to walk over a cliff. 

 

“Please” Chloe whispers, laces their fingers together and gives her hand a squeeze in a way Beca hasn’t felt since her mom left.  

 

And so Becca lets herself fall. 

 

She jerks her car off into the shoulder, not noticing the way the wheels turn at odd angles in the sticky mush or wet tracks streaming down her face until her shoulders are hiccuping uncontrollably against the seatbelt restraint. 

 

All she can feel is her world turning around her uncontrollably like she’s an ant trying to hold back the rising of the sun. 

 

“I’m not, I—” She isn’t sure what she’s even trying to say, words escaping her mouth before she can even think, everything coming out through tears and a lump in her throat that makes her voice sound far-away even to her own ears. She drops her forehead onto the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. I’m not any—“

 

“Shhh” Chloe interrupts and Beca feels the other girl’s hand run through her hair, long fingers tangling through dark locks and sweeping it aside. 

 

She chokes back another sob. 

 

Because why couldn’t this be real? Why couldn’t someone hold her like this, touch her like this, like she’s worth keeping together no matter what in real life? Why couldn’t _Chloe_ be real? 

 

“Its ok. I’m here.” Warm arms wrap themselves around Beca, and even though she knows she shouldn’t, that she’s probably crazy and hallucinating and should check into a hospital, and that tomorrow morning when she wakes up alone the realization that this was all just a crazy dream brought on by too much booze will shatter her heart, she lets herself go limp in the embrace, her body melting into Chloe’s like this isn’t the most dangerous thing she’s done all evening—even though she knows it is. 

 

And it feels right. 

 

Her sobs quite out, then stop as Chloe drags her fingers in slow lines over her spine, hands tracing over the ridges and valleys on her back. “It’s ok,” she mummers into her hair, lips barely touching Beca’s forehead. 

 

Beca feels cold and hot at the same time. She shuts her eyes, closing out everything but the feel of Chloe against her, around her. She can feel the world spinning from behind her eyelids as she lets herself fall deeper into Chloe’s arms, knowing that with every passing second she’s digging herself into a hole that will hurt too much to climb out of unscathed. Its like Chloe knows what she’s feeling though, because her arms tighten and she nuzzles her chin against the top of Beca’s head. 

 

“Don’t go.” Beca’s voice is calmer now, but its still small, tiny, like its afraid of its own timber. 

 

Chloe’s hand stills.  “I-I can’t” She sounds unsure, hesitation making the words come out in a slow drawl, she pulls her face away and Beca can see the way blue eyes stare thoughtfully out the window.  

 

Beca burrows herself even further into Chloe, nudging her forehead against the other girl’s neck, “Please.” 

 

There’s a long silence, broken only by the sound of their even breathing in the car, the snow outside muffling every noise until it feels like they’re the only two people left on Earth. “Ok” Chloe finally breathes into her hair, and Beca can feel the ghost of her smile against her skin. 

 

“Humph” she grunts in response, earning a lazy chuckle from Chloe whose hands resume their slow circling. 

 

“Grumpy even when you get your way,” she teases, sliding one palm up until she can rub her thumb over Beca’s middle ribs. 

 

“I am not grumpy” Beck slurs into her shoulder, a half-hearted glare in her voice. She tries to lean back but only moves far enough away to catch a vague impression of baby blue eyes laughing playfully. 

 

“Mmm” Chloe hums, her voice already a little rough with sleepiness, tugging Because back against her, “Short, grumpy, AND in denial,” she chuckles, low and soft, “you’re basically the old man from ‘Up.’”

 

“The old man? The one with the balloon problem?” Because demands in mock outrage.

 

“The very same.”

 

“Oh my god. I can’t believe you would even go there” but despite her outraged tone Beca can feel an irresistible grin starting to spill out—the harder she tries to keep it back the more impossible it becomes to hold back. “That makes you the little boy then.” she pauses for dramatic effect, “or the dog.”

 

Chloe’s chest rumbles beneath her, “The dog? Doug? That’s not so bad. And you adopt me in the end.”

 

“Only because you won’t leave me alone” 

 

“Sounds familiar.”

 

Beca hums softly. She searches for Chloe’s hand in the dark and slowly picks it up. “Promise?”

 

“Promise what?” Chloe asks, absentmindedly placing her palm against Beca’s. 

 

“That you’ll always be here.”

 

Chloe sighs, deep and long and pained at the end. “I promise.” 

 

“I know” Beca whispers dropping her hand away. “But you’ll be gone when I wake up, won’t you?”

 

Chloe nods.

 

“Why?”

 

“That’s just the way it has to be” Chloe murmurs and Beca swears she can hear something like resentment in her usually perfectly happy voice. 

 

“I won’t go to sleep then.”

 

Chloe chuckles again and rests her head on Beca’s, “Ok,” she smiles quietly, the corners of her lips upturned with bittersweet mirth, the smell of sunshine and flowers drifting through the car.  

 

Beca gives a muffled snort, but her mind is already drifting away, her eyes heavy no matter how hard she trues to keep them open. 

 

There’s a low, sweet note as Chloe begins humming the chorus to some song, and Beca feels the world begin to fade around her.

 

“The reason I breath is you, you got me blinded” 

 

Beca’s head feels heavy, her thoughts disgruntled. And it’s to the sound of Chloe voice hoarsely whispering “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, It’s not the way I planned it…..” that she finally falls asleep. 

 

xxx

 

She wakes up to a knock on her car window. 

 

The windshield is covered in two inches of snow and ice, her seatbelt is tangled over her arms and wrapping her like a mummy in the front seat, and it must be well below freezing because she can she little puffs of grey breath escaping from her mouth. 

 

“Miss, you ok?” the officer asks, tapping against her windshield again, “You can’t park here, its illegal.”

 

Beca sits up, her neck sore and back aching. She looks over at the passenger seat, stormy blue eyes drinking in the empty chair and untouched seatbelt. And she won’t cry. She can’t. She shoves the tears down with an angry grunt and she’s never hated herself for being so vulnerable and stupid as she does right now. Because she knew better, because it was all just a dream and she was stupid to think anyone would ever care about her like that unless they were imaginary. 

 

Never again, Because swears to herself, ignoring the way her insides are shattering and bleeding. 

 

“Ma’am?”

 

She blinks, turns towards the officer and makes a cliche excuse about being too afraid to drive home in the blizzard before rolling up her window and pulling out of the shoulder, her face feeling frozen and fake the whole time. She glances down at her phone, sees a missed call from her father, a text from Stephanie informing her that she’s grounded for breaking curfew yet again, and a long chain of unread messages in the group chat where the boy from the party last night is demanding she come and fix the fence she drove over, and all Because can feel is a numb hollow at the center of her chest where her heart should be. 

 

“How u feeling Becs?” someone from the party texts her. 

 

She smirks at the phone, smile tugging at her chest like burning steal wire. 

 

“great :)”  she texts back, sarcasm nearly dripping off her fingers as she types. She slams her car into drive and speeds down in the direction of town. 

 

She doesn’t stop until she pulls up in front of an old white building, the outside covered in graffiti and neon signs. 

 

She walks in without hesitation and strides up to the main desk. 

 

A man with an eyebrow pricing and a teardrop tattooed under his right eye looks her up and down. 

 

“You lost?”

 

“You can do tattoos here right?” 

 

“Sure. Got something in mind?”

 

Beca closes her eyes then, fights back the tears. A sudden image of red hair and blue eyes, of a face flushed pink like a rose beaming at her over a red plastic cup and the smell of summer flowers and sunshine flashes through her mind. 

 

“Roses” she says determinedly, opening her eyes to focus on the man, “Roses. The kind you can’t forget.” 

 

And she doesn’t even flicnh when he jabs the needle into the skin on her shoulder. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always let know what you think! Sorry if it's a little rough--as I said before I'm just kind of lightly writing this on the side. If theres something you want to see in the next chapter let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Any good? Let me know. I live for the comments. 
> 
> I also low-key might need a beta if anyone is interested.


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